I got an email today from a man in Colorado. He was writing to tell me that he and his son had somehow just discovered Andromeda, and that they had both been moved by the actions and intentions of the character, Tyr. It’s always touching to get such attention so long after the fact. It compelled me to throw these writings up here one more time. There are still other places you can see them, but they have endured, for some, like the character, and I thought they should have a permanent home.
These “journal entries” from the perspective of the character, Tyr, were written as an exercise meant to hopefully provide dimension to a character who was far more complex in my mind than he was for the exigencies of production. It’s far easier to produce content about facile characters, but they are equally that much less interesting or fun to play. I cannot speak for the viewership, but my sense was that such characters are never particularly interesting to watch either… I had endeavored, in The Ancestors’ Breath, to explore the depth of the character’s actions and intentions as informed by his back story; his heritage, his changing life circumstance, and a whole lot of stuff that I just simply made up regarding how I assumed such a species (genetically engineered super-human) would most realistically behave. They were a help to me, creating psychology and sensibility where, for the sake of the camera, there were only general ideas.
For the fans of the character, I suppose that these writings amounted to little more than fan fiction from the horse’s mouth. And that’s fine… Who better, in fact, to write it?
For those interested in perhaps a slightly more insightful, less fictional take there is an interview here for an online magazine called Rebublibot. It’s the last interview that I did on the subject of Andromeda, acting, and Sci-fi. It’s actually quite comprehensive.
For any others, those who remain, or those who are newly interested, here, in eight separate posts, are all eight entries to The Ancestor’s Breath: Reflections and Reminiscences of Barbarossa’s Son.
Whispers in the Void
“You are the center of the wheel”, my father would speak into my ear as he rocked me to sleep in his arms on the nights that from among his wives my mother called him to come to her. “All things revolve about you. You are the only god; your strength the greatest strength; your arm the fellest arm.” These words he whispered even as his massive biceps pressed me about the ribs restraining my breath, and my head rested no differently than some fragile paper thing, unarguably crushable in the gulf of his huge hand. “No value is greater than yours; no glory greater save that which will spring from you.” I was nearly eleven with the physical stature of any average sixteen-year-old human boy when the blitzkrieg of the Drago-Kazov betrayal brought an abrupt end to this practice and changed the nature of all that I knew and would know. Were it not for his death at their hands, I have no doubt that Barbarossa would have continue to enact the ritual, despite my daily increasing size and weight, for yet some time to come. Read More →
